


i've got you

by hiyoris_scarf



Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, real friendship is talking about determination through the metaphor of giant pies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 13:51:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14310060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiyoris_scarf/pseuds/hiyoris_scarf
Summary: Star and Marco are just good friends who share comfort after grueling and emotional battles.just good friends who hug and cry and love each other a lot.





	i've got you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JoKay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoKay/gifts).



> this is a birthday gift for jo (@eerna on tumblr) who i love...so much. happy birthday & you're perfect.

Star’s room was one of the few places in the castle that lived in a natural state of more-or-less organic wreckage. When Marco walked into it behind her, he cast a nervous glance at the ceiling (still present, though a bit more crooked than he remembered), the walls (still standing, despite a large chunk of hewn granite having been blasted away), and the floor (still stable, but splattered in places with an alarming greenish goo he decided not to examine too closely).

After Marco shut the door behind him, he stood in front of it, waiting. Star had stopped in the middle of the room with her back to him. She didn’t say anything for a long moment.

She looked…small.

Star Butterfly, who could shoot narwhals from her mind and bring regenerating, lawyerly lizard villains to their knees begging for mercy. Star Butterfly, the most potently magical princess in a hundred generations of royal lineage, the raw energy of the universe swimming in her veins like cosmic dust. Star Butterfly, who by merely walking into a room dominated it with her vitality, her noise, her sheer _aliveness_.

Star Butterfly was incapable of looking small. Until now.

“I don’t have the stuff anymore, Marco,” she said.

It was the voice she used when she couldn’t cry, because there was something tougher and lonelier than sadness holding the tears hostage. Marco hated that voice.

“Hey,” he said. “You’ve _totally_ got the stuff.”

He walked away from the door, circled around in front of her, and put both hands on her shoulders. She was getting a Trademark Marco Diaz Pep Talk, whether she wanted one or not.

“You held off Meteora for a solid five minutes,” he said, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Not even the Marcnificent Seven could do that. If _that_ doesn’t show you’ve got the stuff, I don’t know what does.”

Star squinted one eye at him. “The ‘Marcnificent Seven’?”

“It was— _uh_ —never mind.” Marco cleared his throat. “Star, you have more ‘stuff’ than anyone I know. Probably more than anyone in the world. You saved my life! Again!! That puts the total at, what, sixty?”

He gave her shoulders a playful shake, and she hiccuped a tiny laugh.

“Eighty-two, at least.”

Marco frowned. That number seemed high, but she probably wasn’t wrong.

Star reached for his hands, sliding them off her shoulders. She gave them a squeeze before she let go, and then turned to sit on the edge of her bed, which was—miraculously, impossibly—still undamaged. She kicked off her boots and pulled her legs up under her skirt, wrapping her arms around them, and digging her sharp, pale chin into her knees.

“I don’t have it,” she said. Her words were harsh with frustration. _“_ The _stuff_ …the magic. I gave it away to her, because I thought…I thought it would _fix_ everything.”

Marco sat down beside her on the mattress, and the bed frame creaked loudly under his weight. He winced. Maybe it hadn’t escaped Meteora’s rampage after all.

“You…gave what away?” he asked, keeping his voice low and sympathetic. He considered putting an arm around her, but before he could move, Star buried her forehead in her knees. Her next words came out muffled.

“I don’t know. I don’t _know_. I just wanted to make things better for her. I didn’t know what else to do. I gave her all my magic.” Her voice splintered, punched through with dry, tearless sobs that shuddered through her like waves on a shipwreck.

“It was like I was pulling out my own heart, Marco. But I couldn’t do _anything_ except make her angrier! And she _deserved_ to be angry! Can you imagine having your history—your _family_ —stolen from you like that?! I thought I could give some of it back—but then it was all over, and the wand wouldn’t work for me, and then _Eclipsa_ —”

Star pulled her face out of her knees, scrubbing roughly at her eyes and nose with the hem of her destroyed skirt.

“I’m not part of Mewni royalty,” she moaned. “I’m not magical. I don’t have the stuff that makes me a princess. I don’t have the stuff that makes me a _Butterfly_. I don’t have anything, Marco. Anything at all.”

Marco stared at her. This wasn’t the real Star. This wasn’t the relentlessly cheerful, annoyingly optimistic, rainbow-shooting, monster-vanquishing, sparkling Star Butterfly.

“Hey,” he said. Star blinked vacantly at her hands.

He tried again, and something awful and loud and furious inside him took control of his voice.

“HEY YOU,” he hollered. “SHUT UP.”

_Whoops._

Star’s head swiveled slowly to glare at him. Her nose was an angry red from being rubbed so fiercely, and her eyes were swollen. She looked worse than hell, and they both knew it, because they’d both been there, and it wasn’t a half-bad place to hang out.

“ _Excuse_ me?” she said. There was a fraction of the old, dangerous spark in those three syllables that gave Marco some hope. It also sent a thrill of genuine terror up his spine, raising hair along his neck.

“I said _shut up_ ,” he said, plowing forward now that it was definitely too late to backpedal. “‘You don’t have anything?’ What am I? One of last week’s corndogs? And what about your dad? Or Tom? Ponyhead? Kelly?”

Star’s mouth fell open. Marco heard the counterargument building in her throat, and he shouted her down before she could bulldoze him.

“So _what_ if you’re not ‘royalty’?” he demanded, emphasizing heavily the air quotes around the last word. “You’re still Star. You’re still the person everyone looks to for guidance. You may not be related to Eclipsa, or any of the Butterflys before her, and so what? You’re a leader, Star. Maybe not by blood, but by everything else. You’re good at all the important stuff: protecting, and defending, and sympathizing, and loving. That’s all the ‘stuff’ you need.”

Star was still looking at him, her mouth slightly agape in an “O” of shock. Marco stopped, because he needed to breathe.

“My mom usually does all that better than me,” she said, after a few moments when he thought she might instead punch him. “And she’s gone.”

“So you’ll find her,” he said immediately. “With help from your squire, of course.”

Star smiled with deep weariness. “I don’t know if I can, after…what happened.”

Marco poked her shoulder. “Hey. Weren’t you listening? You don’t give up. That’s not a thing you do.”

Then, he smirked. “Hey. Remember The Pie?”

Star winced. _The Pie._

“I ate That Whole Pie,” she whispered.

“On a dare,” Marco reminded her.

“It was a Janna Dare.” Her eyes went unfocused, and she grimaced. “You don’t refuse a Janna Dare.”

“It was as big as a warnicorn,” said Marco.

“I threw up so much. Mostly on you.”

“It was super, duper gross.”

“I’d do it again.”

“See? You don’t give up. Even when giving up is…probably a good idea.”

Star couldn’t respond to that, so she grumbled something incoherent instead.

“Where did we even get That Pie?” Marco mused.

Star shrugged. “Where do laser puppies come from?”

Marco nodded. “Some questions are better left unanswered.”

Star sighed, and she leaned against him. They were at a somewhat awkward angle, her shoulder resting against his chest.

“You’re okay at this,” she admitted quietly.

Marco ignored with all his might the weight of her body against his, and how it felt natural and good for her to seek support from him, and how the points of her hornband poked him in the chin a little bit, but it was fine.

“I know,” he said.

“I mean the friend thing.”

“I know.”

“You’re still iffy on the squire thing.”

“Hey!” He frowned at the top of her head. “I’m a _good_ squire.”

“Good squires have abs,” she muttered.

“That…doesn’t sound right.”

“A good squire would be called Marco Di-Abs, and he could punch through a Pie so hard that it turned into a hundred-thousand Mini Pies, and then everyone in Mewni could have their own Mini Pie.”

“Star, are you sleep talking?”

She giggled dreamily. “A little bit, maybe. There’s a kitten outside.”

There was a short silence as something scratched at the door to Star’s bedroom.

“That’s not a kitten,” Marco groaned. “That’s Glossaryck.”

Neither of them moved, and the scratching at the door stopped. A forlorn “globgor” echoed down the hall as Glossaryck made his retreat.

“Thanks, Marco,” Star said, her voice thick with sleep. “You’ve got the stuff.”

“You do too.” He nudged against her shoulder. For a few moments, he thought she had drifted off entirely, worn down to nothing after the terror and grief of battle. But she spoke again.

“I need another hug, Marco,” said Star. “A real one.”

And so Marco really hugged her, pulling her small, tired, beaten body against his and cradling it there.

“I’ve got you, Star Butterfly,” he said. His nose rested on the top of her head. She smelled like strawberries and the bright, burning afterlight of an explosion. She smelled like a victory.

“I’ve got you.”


End file.
